DataWind to launch new devices for US school kids

Canada-based DataWind, best-known as the maker of low-cost Aakash tablet, is launching a range of new devices aimed at schoolchildren in the United Sates. This week, the company released three new tablets as well as phablets (phone and tablet combined) and aims to manufacture the product in the United States from next year.

ET Bureau

December 17, 2013, 13:42 IST

BANCanada-based DataWind, best-known as the maker of low-cost Aakash tablet, is launching a range of new devices aimed at schoolchildren in the United Sates.GALORE: Canada-based DataWind, best-known as the maker of low-cost Aakash tablet, is launching a range of new devices aimed at schoolchildren in the United Sates.

This week, the company released three new tablets as well as phablets (phone and tablet combined) and aims to manufacture the product in the United States from next year.

Priced at $37.99 ( Rs 2,350) at the entry level, its UbiSlate will compete with other low-cost devices which retail at less than $50 (Rs 3,100).

"Although we're not ready at the current time to deliver an American-made product, we continue to work hard to set up production in the United States," said DataWind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli. "We expect to be able to deliver locally made devices in the first or second quarter of the New Year."

The company's range of 3G-enabled tablets will sell at a higher price point in the US, starting at $130, compared with Rs 7,000 ($114) in India.

Tuli believes the development of the tablet stemmed from the realisation that lack of internet adoption in many parts of the world was mainly an affordability issue. "We're working to bring affordable technology to the many millions of households who are currently excluded from benefiting from the digital revolution."

Vivek Wadhwa, vice president of research and innovation at Singularity University, who is trying to introduce the tablets in some schools in the Silicon Valley, said it is possible that next year the first "Made in US" phablets retailing for less than $100 (about 600) will be launched.

He said the tablets were tested at Palo Alto High, a school in Silicon Valley. "They gave it the thumbs up with some reservations about its speed."